1656 B.C.

Job 17)

1 My spirit has become consumed, my days are extinct, the graves are ready for me.

2 Are there not mockers with me? and does not my eye constantly dwell on their provocation?
3 Appoint it now, I pray, be You my bond (Cp. Isa. 38:14 [undertake]); who is he (the answer is given in v.4 "[not they]") that will strike hands (idiom put for making a compact. Cp. Prov. 6:1; 11:15; 17:18; 22:26,&c.) with me?
4 For You have hid their heart from understanding: therefore shall You not exalt them.
5 He that speaks flattery to his friends, even the eyes of his sons shall look in vain.
6 He has made me also a byword of the people; and in former times I was as a drum. (To the sound and warning of which people gave heed. See 1 Sam. 10:5. After this verse imagine a pause.)
7 My eye also is dim by reason of sorrow, and all my limbs are as a shadow.
8 Upright men shall be astonished at this, and the innocent shall stir up himself against the hypocrite.
9 The righteous also shall hold on his way, and he that has clean hands shall be stronger and stronger.
10 But as for you all, do you return, and come now: for I cannot find one wise man among you.
11 My days are past, my purposes are broken off, even the thoughts of my heart.

12 They change the night into day: the light is short because of darkness.
13 If I wait, the grave (Heb. Sheol) is my house: I have made my bed in the darkness.
14 I have said to corruption, 'You are my father: to the worm, You are my mother, and my sister.'
15 And where is now my hope? as for my hope, who shall see it?
16 They shall go down to the bars of the pit(Heb. Sheol), when our rest together is in the dust."